


Enough Self Control for Three Men

by Salamander



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: M/M, ffxii countdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-06
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 18:08:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11423328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salamander/pseuds/Salamander
Summary: It has been long, now, that Balthier has taken to visiting Al-Cid after each job was complete; yet the heat that danced between them has yet to be satisfied.





	Enough Self Control for Three Men

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is for the FFXII HD release countdown, run by the awesome Agi92! I still can't believe this day is finally coming...
> 
> Thanks to all who have put up with me whittering incessantly about FFXII, with especial thanks to my husbird Crowbi who is, as ever, my favourite sounding board and partner in RP crime. <3

 

The sound of an airship touching down broke the contemplative silence of Al-Cid’s chambers. She landed on the balcony just outside the window; luckily one large enough to accommodate the smaller vessel that Balthier brought out to his usual detour through Rozarria.

Al-Cid didn’t move from his position, lounging back on a chaise, a crisp, cool cocktail in one elegant hand and the other up behind his head.

He raised the glass as Balthier stepped in through the wispy curtains, tilting it in a salute before taking a sip, eyes never leaving his prey.

“What sort of weather you do keep in this place,” Balthier drawled, pulling off his golden vest without comment. “It’s enough to dry a man to the bone.” He draped it across the edge of the chaise.

“I prepared cocktails,” Al-Cid said by way of reply. He gestured at the low table next to the chaise and drew his legs up, knees bent, to allow Balthier somewhere to sit. “Do make yourself at home.”

“Oh, I plan to.” Balthier toed off his loose sandals and settled himself at the end, leaning forward to help himself to a glass from the pitcher. He turned his back to Al-Cid and shuffled slightly until he was against his knees; Al-Cid obligingly allowed them to fall open, and Balthier settled back against him with a pleased sigh.

Al-Cid let one of his legs fall to the side and draped the other across Balthier’s, his free arm resting across the man’s chest with a rather obvious proprietariness that he felt no need to hide. They had been performing this little ritual for long enough now that it barely even needed words. 

Balthier completed his jobs, he swung into Al-Cid’s chambers like he owned them, and then he left again when he pleased, as agile with his affections as a coeurl, and just as eager to take them away again at a moment’s notice. 

“This is good,” Balthier commented after sipping at his drink. “Powerful stuff. One would think you were trying to get a man drunk, Al-Cid Margrace.”

“Ah well, perhaps that could be part of my intentions towards you.” Al-Cid chuckled between sips from his own glass. “But do not fear, my flighty sky pirate. I plan to get just as ensorcelled as you, so you’ll not be alone.”

Balthier laughed. “Oh, I do not fear you. Perhaps mistrust your intentions, however?” He tapped thoughtfully at Al-Cid’s knee, lithe fingers dancing across the loose fabric cladding his legs. “It has been said by many that you are somewhat of a charmer. A womaniser, even. And yet, the whole time I have been visiting you here, you have not so much as tried to get into my britches. Now why would that be?”

“Perhaps I want something more than simply the contents of your britches; delightful though they no doubt may be.” Al-Cid trailed his fingertips across Balthier’s belly, delighting in the way it fluttered against his touch. It would be oh-so-easy to dip his fingers down, down, ever down; to bring them both to a lazy, satisfied climax. And yet he hesitated. A trait most unlike himself, as Balthier so aptly pointed out. 

“I find that a difficult tale to swallow,” Balthier murmured, but he tipped his head back and looked up at Al-Cid, at the way his black curls framed his face. Ah, but he was beautiful. Dangerous, that. 

“And yet I feel certain that you have found other tales even moreso.” Al-Cid refrained from making a comment about  _ swallowing _ , though he yearned to. Instead, he looked down at Balthier and pressed a kiss against his forehead. “This is no word of a lie, Balthier. If I am to have you - and I do believe that I will indeed have you, at some point - then I would wish it to be nothing more than your own choice. I derive no pleasure in forcing a man; least of all one who is not ready for such intimacies.”

Balthier snorted, but his eyes darted away from Al-Cid and focused instead on the billowing, gauzy curtains. “You see more than a seer would proclaim to,” he muttered, taking another drink of his cocktail to mask the uncertainty in his voice. “How deeply you claim to know me.”

Al-Cid laughed deep in his chest. “Oh I do not need to  _ know  _ you to sense this. I do have an iota of ability to read people, as you are well aware.” He flattened his palm against Balthier’s stomach, steadying him. “It is no great leap to notice the way you shy away from anything deeper than this.” 

“Ah yes, how foolish of me. I forgot that you are but a politician, first and foremost.” Balthier sat up abruptly, pushing away from Al-Cid and standing. He downed the rest of the cocktail and set the empty glass back down on the table with a firm  _ click _ . “And here I was hoping that perhaps you could be but a man, for once. For me.” He turned away, eyes drawn once more to the curtains, to the sky. How he yearned to be free; free from emotions, free from whatever this unspoken hell was between them. 

Al-Cid rose and set his own, still half-full glass down next to Balthier’s. “If you truly wish it, then I will.” He let his own hesitation show, then. The smallest shard of vulnerability that this man brought to the surface. He wrapped both arms around Balthier and held him close, looking out of the window at the sands beyond.

Balthier held both of Al-Cid’s arms with his own, hand over hand as they stood in silence for a moment. “When you have been running for a long time, it is ever harder to stop and face what you’re afraid of,” he whispered, eventually. “I have-” he paused, swallowed, and then continued, “I have never experienced a true relationship. And yes, that scares me.”

“It scares me, too.” Al-Cid pressed his nose against the back of Balthier’s head, breathing in the sun-warmed scent of him. “I know lightness and playful words, teasing and flirting. But the serious parts? Never been so good at those.” 

“I suppose… we do not have to be serious.” Balthier took a deep breath and then turned, still in Al-Cid’s arms. “We just have to be ourselves. Although that does not give you leave to poke fun at me when I confess that I have never been, ah-” he paused, biting down on his bottom lip. “Physically intimate with another man.”

Al-Cid’s eyebrows raised before he could put a halt to it. “And therein lies the fear, I imagine?” His words were gentle, though. As if wooing a skittish breeze to his side. 

“I came late to it,” Balthier continued, eyes still distant. “To this realisation. The Empire’s walls were not the best place for me, as you are well aware. They granted me a great deal of practice in keeping such things inside, and private. And by the time I was in a position to act upon any of these feelings, well, you know  _ that _ story. No time for such dalliances when there’s a kingdom at stake.”

He leaned against Al-Cid’s chest, allowing himself to just breathe. There was a breeze from the long windows and it brought the scent of the desert to his nose. Not such a bad scent, that. Not when it carried new connotations, new feelings which had settled inside him like a dune after a sandstorm.

“If it sets your mind at rest,” Al-Cid began, pressing a kiss to Balthier’s head, “we do not have to consummate anything, if you are not comfortable doing so.” He stopped for a second, pondering whether to bare the truth of himself. No, there was nothing for it. Honesty it was. “In truth, I would like to give a name to this thing of ours. I would be happy with simply that, for now.”

Balthier snorted. “I’ll give you a name for it, and that’s love-stricken saps.” His eyes danced with new confidence, though, and he raised an eyebrow at Al-Cid. “If you’re game, I am. I find myself… wanting, these days. Wanting very much.”

Al-Cid groaned at the admission, allowing his hands to slide to the small of Balthier’s back. “You are not alone in that,” he replied, voice suddenly husky. “I have lain awake many nights, thinking of you. Above me, below me, anyway you would have me.”

“Now that is an interesting proposition,” Balthier murmured. He looked up into Al-Cid’s eyes, noting the heat and intensity there with no little marked interest from his own body. “I may be a beginner, but I am no stranger to the mechanics of pleasure.”

“Oh? How interesting. Where, then, did you pick up such knowledge?”

Balthier swatted Al-Cid on the chest. “Books, you uncultured swine. There are many and varied books on the subject of male pleasure, if you but know where to look.”

“And of course, you know where to look.”

“Well, you are a sky pirate after all. It would be an affront to your profession if you knew not where to procure such tomes.”

“I don’t need my profession to procure the tomes,” Balthier replied with a smirk. “Only memberships at certain libraries.” He pushed Al-Cid’s chest, walking them forward until his legs collided with the frame of the huge four poster bed. Another push and he had Margrace on his back, lithe body framed by the gauzy curtains of the bed. 

Balthier bit his bottom lip again, feeling the weight of his reaction to the sight before him. “And I suppose you, yourself, go about acquiring your knowledge in a rather more physical fashion, hmm?”

He crawled over Al-Cid, tugging at the loose shirt he wore until he slid over his chest and then arms. Balthier dropped it to the floor, paying no heed to the fineness of the fabric for once in his life. 

“You are coming across as somewhat more confident than you have ever been,” Al-Cid purred, reaching up to relieve Balthier of his own shirt. He pulled it off with finesse, adding it to the growing pile of divested clothing beside the bed. “And, if you are desperate for the information, yes. I have wide and varied experience with such things, with both men and women.” He raised an eyebrow, arrowing a pointed look at Balthier. “Does this fact bother you?”

“It bothers me not,” Balthier murmured. He was laying atop Al-Cid, chin resting on his chest and looking up at him from under his lashes. “Experience is never a bad thing, and I am not so vulgar to believe that it ruins a person for any who follow.” He gave his hips an experimental roll, breathing heavily through his nose as the pressure shot tingles through his crotch. “In fact, I believe it will be a decided benefit for our coupling. You can tell me precisely the way in which you want me to fuck you.”

Al-Cid sucked in a breath of air, as if shocked by the plainness of Balthier’s words. “Ah, so you would have it that way. An excellent suggestion.” A lazy smile curled on his lips and he met Balthier’s hips with his own, arching off the bed a little to provide more friction, more pressure. 

“I trust you have ample lubrication at hand.” It wasn’t a question, and Balthier pushed himself up and off Al-Cid to allow him to locate said lubrication, and hand the beautiful vial over. 

“Ever prepared,” Al-Cid said with a wide smile. He lay back on the bed once more, tugging down his trousers to expose his tanned legs and the burgeoning erection pressing insistently at his undergarments. “Give me your hand, and the vial.”

Balthier obeyed, and Al-Cid manipulated the clever fastening until some of the slick liquid oozed out of the top and spread itself across Balthier’s fingers. He rubbed them together experimentally, inhaling the fresh scent it gave off. “Herbal,” he commented, using his non-lubricated hand to palm down the front of Al-Cid’s erection. “A pleasant change from no scent, indeed.”

Al-Cid groaned, lifted his hips from the bed so he could pull off his undergarments. They followed the shirts to the floor, and he settled back down again with all the confidence of a royal. “Your fingers,” he said, voice a little hasty, “come now, do not keep a man waiting, Balthier.”

The way he pronounced Balthier’s name was like honey spreading over desert berries, and it made Balthier’s toes curl. “Impatience,” he murmured, though in truth he was feeling just as impatient, if not moreso. 

Oh the lead-up to the act had been fraught with insecurity, and no small amount of worry, but Balthier found that now he was here, all of that melted away. He was very familiar with the acts after all his extra reading, and he’d always been a quick study and excellent with his hands, to boot. Something to be said for an Imperial education, indeed.

He sat back on his knees, lubricated fingers circling at Al-Cid’s deliciously bared entrance. It was hotter than he’d expected, somehow, and as he slipped a finger inside, he realised it was also a great deal tighter. How it would feel when he was inside him proper, well.

Balthier pushed his finger in to the hilt, noting the way that Al-Cid arched for him, allowing him access at the same time as controlling the angle. He cocked his head, then took hold of Al-Cid’s dick with his free hand, feeling the silky weight of it against his palm. 

“Yes,” Al-Cid hissed, “just the spot. Now if you crook your finger a little,  _ ah _ ! Yes, just so.” He let out a breathy moan, and Balthier bit his lip. “That is a pleasant little spot, as you can no doubt tell.”

With a groan, Balthier continued following Al-Cid’s instructions, finger crooked _ just so _ , and delighted in how perfectly responsive Al-Cid was to every movement. 

He slid his free hand up and down Al-Cid’s dick, experimenting with grip and speed until he seemed to hit the perfect spot; at which point, he pushed in another two well-lubricated fingers. “Am I to assume you are always so talkative during sex? Or am I a special case?”

“Oh I like to speak my pleasure aloud,” Al-Cid said with another deep groan. “Oh, from one to three, is it? You are quite wicked indeed.” He gripped the bedsheets with both hands, eyes closing and head tilted back and oh, it was too much.

Balthier pulled his fingers from Al-Cid, watching the way his entrance gave them up with a wet little noise, as though hungry for more. “Help me with these.” He gestured at his trousers, now chafing horribly against his erection. 

Al-Cid obliged, sitting up and unfastening Balthier’s leather trousers, somewhat tighter than his own. It took a little more effort than his own had, considering the skin tight nature of the things, but he managed. Balthier wriggled out of them, and his undergarments besides, and they too went sailing onto the floor. 

Now wholly naked, his erection standing proud and a little wet, Balthier had a wave of self-consciousness wash over him; right up until Al-Cid pulled him down by the neck for a deep kiss, their dicks rubbing against each other, and oh, it was better than anything he could have thought up in his own mind.

His fingers were still lubricated, and Balthier broke apart for a second to stroke the slickness across the head of his dick. 

“I believe more should be applied,” Al-Cid said with humour in his voice, “considering the size of you.” 

Balthier raised an eyebrow, but held out his hand for more lubrication with nary a comment. He felt a flush of warmth at the unspoken compliment, though, and one which was only intensified by the cool liquid enveloping his dick. “I presume that should suffice?” he said dryly, once he was thoroughly soaked in the stuff.

Al-Cid lay back, satisfied, and beckoned Balthier with an elegant hand. “I like it slow,” he commented as Balthier bent over him, lining up the head of his dick against his entrance. 

“As you say,” Balthier replied, distracted. He pushed a little, feeling as though he would get nowhere, but then the head of his dick slid inside with the most delicious pressure and any other thoughts were driven from his head post haste. 

Bearing in mind Al-Cid’s comment about slowness, Balthier managed to take a grip of himself enough to check himself before thrusting in with complete abandon. 

Al-Cid’s head fell back against the pillow as Balthier sheathed himself fully, and the noise he made was sublime.

“Oh, if you keep making sounds like that, I cannot guarantee my longevity,” Balthier gasped. He bent his head, near leaning against Al-Cid’s chest as he steadied himself, breathing with all his focus until he was certain he wouldn’t just come like a teenage boy new to pleasure.

“Yes,” Al-Cid murmured nonsensically, reaching up for Balthier’s head. He ran his fingers through the short hair there, bringing them to rest at the nape of his neck, in the downiest part of his hair. “Do not worry, my love. Just do.”

Balthier groaned, whether at the endearment or the sensation of tightness around him or, hell, even the fingers in his hair, he did not know. Slow, yes. He could do slow. He moved, a little ungainly at first, as he tried to get the movements correct. 

It began to slide into place, though, and he found his rhythm. Who would have guessed that Al-Cid would be such a generous lover? So yielding and attentive, even as he was the one being fucked? 

Al-Cid held him close as Balthier fucked him, like something precious he never wished to be parted from. 

Their movements began to lack grace as Balthier’s climax approached; his hips jerked and his pace increased, all thoughts of gentle slowness driven from his mind as he fucked Al-Cid with abandon. 

At some point, Al-Cid’s legs had risen and wrapped around his waist, hooking him in deeper even as he lifted himself off the bed for more, more more. 

Balthier came, a throaty groan falling from his lips to be muffled at Al-Cid’s sweat-cloaked collarbone. He felt Al-Cid clench around him; the faraway realisation that there was movement between them as Al-Cid brought himself to climax with one hand, hot and wet against their stomachs. 

Al-Cid sagged backwards, one hand trapped between their bellies and the other still twined in Balthier’s hair. “That,” he drawled, “was wonderful.”

“Hm?” Balthier lifted his head to look dazedly at Al-Cid. “I could not bring you to your satisfaction,” he muttered, feeling a slow wash of shame. 

“My love.” Al-Cid lifted Balthier’s head by the chin, holding his gaze with fond, laughing eyes. “There is no shame in what you did. None, do you hear me?” 

Balthier nodded, though he worried at the inside of his lip.

“It is rare indeed that two people climax together, and that is to say nothing of extra help along the way. Perhaps next time, it will be your hand on me, and I will come with your name on my lips all over again.”

“Hmm,” Balthier replied, brow crinkled. The shame ebbed away, however, along with any thoughts of leaving for the night. “I shall defer to your superior knowledge on the subject.” He rested his chin on Al-Cid’s chest again. “Now, before we grow an unpleasant crust, tell me that you will allow us the treat of using your magnificent baths. I could soak for an hour solid, and still want for more.”

“I adore the way you think,” Al-Cid said with a smirk. “And perhaps, in our youth, we could try some more of your book learning in the warmth of the baths.”

Balthier chuckled. “You are incorrigible. How did you keep your hands off me, this whole time?” 

“I clearly come equipped with enough self control for three men.”

“Hmm, indeed. Let us find out how much self control you have, in the face of my continuing nakedness.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry but Ffamran mied Bunansa may hide all his insecurities beneath his slick, sky pirate front, but you cannot tell me that the man is not familiar with books of sexual technique. Virgin Balthier is such a delightful concept, I am in love with this headcanon all the rest wither and pale in comparisonnnnnn imagine the glasses perched on the edge of his nose as he takes notes i'm dead sorry guys


End file.
